Race Against Dementia and Dementia Australia Research Foundation Fellow
The University of Queensland, Australia
Dr Adekunle Bademosi completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Lagos in Nigeria before moving to Australia to pursue his master’s and a PhD at the University of Queensland. As a post-doctoral research fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute, he was awarded the RAD DARF Fellowship in 2021. His research focuses on uncovering the mechanisms that lead to the onset of neurodegenerative disorders, with a specific interest in providing mechanistic and therapeutic solutions for frontotemporal dementia.
“This fellowship provides a unique platform to work with great minds in the field of dementia. My vision for how major solutions will be discovered in overcoming dementia will only be achieved through collaboration and teamwork – much like how Formula 1 has advanced over the years.”
Dr Adekunle Bademosi
Adekunle’s research
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is associated with progressive damage to the aspects of the human brain involved in the control of movement, problem solving, memory, social behaviour and other vital functions.
Post-mortem brain samples of FTD patients reveal large clumps of toxic proteins within some neurons (brain cells). Each neuron has intrinsic protective mechanisms responsible for clearing up these protein clumps. However, in FTD, these mechanisms fail.
Adekunle uses advanced imaging tools, with resolutions up to ten million times that of a standard digital camera, to visualise these proteins before, during and after their accumulation within test neurons.
Adekunle’s research has the potential to offer an early diagnostic tool for FTD before any symptoms appear and to screen the effects of new drugs on protein clumps before clinical trials.
